All of this goes to making a point that I repeat often: every design solution must be native to its intended medium. Even though two media may look similar, may share many similar qualities, may even target the same users, in almost every case they will be different in fundamental ways, and users will expect interfaces to respect what makes each unique. It’s unrealistic to expect that the sort of interface you might find on a desktop application or even a mobile application will work on a television, and yet that was more or less Google TV’s approach. Similarly, it’s also unrealistic to expect a tablet computer to work like a print magazine, but then again everyone knows that.
via Subtraction.com – The Interactive TV You Already Use. One of the problems with Google’s products is they are built primarily by engineers as opposed to designers. Google builds a fantastic back end but invariably a less impressive front end in their less mature products. This invites this exact problem where a product almost entirely designed by engineers is marketed towards average people, leading to a failed product. It’s in a lot of ways the exact opposite approach of Apple’s and a reason why Apple may not have a fantastic backend product (Cloud Stored Media anybody), but man are the products a dream to use in most cases.